DRINKING WATER
Rural North Texas Community Cuts Non-Revenue Water By 42% With Pipeline Leak Detection Technology
Discover how a city solved its non-revenue water challenge by rapidly pinpointing three hard-to-find leaks in 13 miles of aging pipeline using a free-swimming acoustic tool.
DRINKING WATER CASE STUDIES AND WHITE PAPERS
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Groundwater Treatment Pilot Test Program Proves Successful In California (Loprest)
Iron, manganese, arsenic and hydrogen sulfide are indigenous to numerous groundwater aquifers. With the exception of arsenic, these constituents are more prevalent in deeper aquifers that are devoid of dissolved oxygen. This report summarizes the results and conclusions of a groundwater treatment pilot test program.
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How To Benefit From Greater Transparency To Customers
Being more proactive in sharing utility operational insights with customers can pay dividends in terms of promoting efficiency and elevating customer satisfaction. It can also prepare utilities to respond more effectively to sudden or drastic disruptions of standard operations, such as droughts, floods, wildfires, or health emergencies. Here is how to establish and benefit from greater transparency.
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Managing Water Loss In Four Easy Steps
A practical approach to detecting leaks and reducing non-revenue water.
Water utilities are charged with an incredibly important task – providing safe and affordable water to communities in the face of aging infrastructure, funding gaps, and changing regulatory requirements. Specifically, when considering water loss control, leakage, and operational inefficiencies, costs may appear to be unaffordable.
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Historic Town Builds A “Smart” Water System With ORION® Cellular And BEACON® Software as a Service (SaaS)
Paducah Water in Kentucky identified a need to upgrade its water system. The utility used a manual reading system for decades and investigated multiple solutions, including touch-read and drive-by systems. None of the solutions met its requirements. “In both of our attempts to deploy new solutions, we found the equipment and systems to be unreliable. We even had to stop our implementation efforts after having installed 1,000 new water meters,” said Bill Robertson, general manager of Paducah Water. “We had to keep looking.” Read the full case study to learn more.
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Using Ozone In Advanced Oxidation
The advanced oxidation process removes contaminants in water and wastewater by oxidation through reactions with highly reactive hydroxyl radicals (.OH). This chemical process uses ozone (O3), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and/or UV light.
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Indirect Potable Reuse With UV-Oxidation - Big Spring, Texas
In an effort to reduce reliance on dwindling surface and groundwater supplies in Texas, the Colorado River Municipal Water District constructed a new Raw Water Production Facility in Big Spring.
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A New Way To Desalinate — Government Tested, Real-World Approved
Developed by the Department of Defense, capacitive deionization (CDI) removes salt from water, while conventional methods remove water from salt. By Patrick Curran, CEO and founder, Atlantis Technologies
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Known For “Healing Waters,” Pagosa Springs Restores Its Potable Water System With Help From SolarBee® Mixers
Located in the high desert plateau of southwestern Colorado, Pagosa Springs is famous for its geothermal hot springs, which draw visitors worldwide to soak in the mineral-rich water. The Utes called the sulfur springs “Pah-gosah,” meaning “healing waters.” You might say the town’s potable water system is healed now as well.
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Saudi Arabian Airport Successfully Uses Aquatech's Seawater Reverse Osmosis System India’s first Ultra Mega Power Project (UMPP) at Mundra in Coastal Gujarat, a 4,000 MW coal fired plant, is owned by Coastal Gujarat Power Limited (CGPL), a Tata Power group company.
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Insta-Valve 250 Provides Targeted Control Without System Shutdown
Hydra-Stop’s solution allowed targeted control for planned maintenance and repair. MDC is a water utility that serves a densely populated region of Connecticut that also has a significant amount of commercial and industrial facilities. Like so many water utilities within the U.S., MDC has a century-old infrastructure which requires a proactive and preventative maintenance approach.
DRINKING WATER APPLICATION NOTES
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LC-MS Analysis Of PFAS Compounds In EPA Methods 537.1, 533 And 832711/4/2021
The Ascentis Express PFAS HPLC column is designed for the separation of novel and legacy PFAS as per recent EPA methods. A specific PFAS delay column prevents background PFAS contamination from interfering with sample results in quantitative LC-MS methods.
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What Is Genclean Advanced Oxidation Disinfection Solution And What Is It Used For?2/18/2021
A non-toxic, advanced oxidation (AOP) formula of minerals chelated with oxygen and stabilized in an aqueous water solution. It is a viable option in industries and applications requiring a solution to challenging situations where high level effective sanitization and oxidation is required. Read more to learn how the Genclean advanced oxidation treatment solutions can be used in different applications.
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Application Note: Turbidity Monitoring In Drinking Water Treatment Plants8/30/2005
Turbidity, or the relative clarity of a liquid (in this case drinking water), is caused by the presence of microscopic particles such as clay, silt, or other fine undissolved matter
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The Basics: Keeping Our Water Clean Requires Monitoring4/30/2014
Keeping the water in our lakes, rivers, and streams clean requires monitoring of water quality at many points as it gradually makes its way from its source to our oceans. Over the years ever increasing environmental concerns and regulations have heightened the need for increased diligence and tighter restrictions on wastewater quality.
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Removal Of Chloramines With Activated Carbon12/30/2013
In order to reduce the formation of harmful disinfection byproducts in drinking water, alternative disinfectant use has become increasingly widespread. Monochloramine is a leading alternative disinfectant that offers advantages for municipal water. This tech brief details the removal of monochloramine using activated carbon.
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LC-MS Analysis Of 33 PFAS Compounds In 5 Minutes11/4/2021
In response to environmental testing demands for faster LC-MS analyses, the new Ascentis® Express PFAS HPLC and delay columns allow the highly efficient separation of 33 PFAS compounds in 5 minutes with reduced background contamination.
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Innovative Solutions To Drinking Water Decontamination In Small And Medium Treatment Plants9/21/2017
Air stripping technology effectively removes VOCs, THMs, and CO2 for improved adherence to water quality regulations.
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Recording & Control: In Coagulant Dosage Applications For Potable Water Treatment7/1/2019
Potable water or drinking water as it is also known, is water that is safe to drink or to be used in food preparation. Typically, in developed countries, tap water meets the required drinking water standards, although only a small proportion is actually drank or used in food preparation.
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VFD Energy Savings For Pumping Applications4/6/2017
In the early days of variable frequency drive (VFD) technology, the typical application was in process control for manufacturing synthetic fiber, steel bars, and aluminum foil.
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Process Optimization For Flow Measurement4/29/2021
The Saalfeld-Rudolfstadt Association in Germany must rely on cutting-edge technologies that optimize flow measurement in order to allow for smooth processes and supply 82,000 inhabitants with clean drinking water.
LATEST INSIGHTS ON DRINKING WATER
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The city of Jackson faced a water crisis that went beyond the tap. What began as an ambitious plan to modernize its water metering infrastructure in 2014 became a logistical and financial nightmare, costing the city millions in lost revenue and declining public trust. Metering as a Service (MaaS) offered the city an alternative option.
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There has been an abundance of funding available to address the estimated 9.2 million lead service lines currently deliver drinking water to homes, businesses, schools, and unsuspecting citizens throughout the United States. So it is disheartening to realize that millions of lead water lines are still delivering water to citizens.
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This Q&A follows the Webinar: Beaverton's New AMI Solution Checks Every Box: Operations, Billing, Service, & Savings hosted by Water Online on October 21, 2025. The webinar featured the leadership team from Beaverton Water Division as they discussed lessons learned across operations, billing, and customer service, offering a 360-degree perspective on implementing and managing an AMI system.
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Amid the AI-fueled gold rush, more leaders are beginning to pay attention to the short- and long-term natural resource concerns, especially around all the water needed to keep data centers running.
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Water pricing often fails to reflect scarcity, quality, or long-term risk, forcing companies to act internally. But this action is not being done in a vacuum. The ripple effect of internal water pricing is bound to impact water utilities, and ultimately, ratepayers and consumers.
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Misinformation and confusion could prevent some utilities from benefitting from the aqueous film-forming foam multidistrict litigation (AFFF MDL) settlements. Here are five common myths about the AFFF MDL PFAS settlements and how public water systems can make the most of this unprecedented funding opportunity.
ABOUT DRINKING WATER
In most developed countries, drinking water is regulated to ensure that it meets drinking water quality standards. In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administers these standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).
Drinking water considerations can be divided into three core areas of concern:
- Source water for a community’s drinking water supply
- Drinking water treatment of source water
- Distribution of treated drinking water to consumers
Drinking Water Sources
Source water access is imperative to human survival. Sources may include groundwater from aquifers, surface water from rivers and streams and seawater through a desalination process. Direct or indirect water reuse is also growing in popularity in communities with limited access to sources of traditional surface or groundwater.
Source water scarcity is a growing concern as populations grow and move to warmer, less aqueous climates; climatic changes take place and industrial and agricultural processes compete with the public’s need for water. The scarcity of water supply and water conservation are major focuses of the American Water Works Association.
Drinking Water Treatment
Drinking Water Treatment involves the removal of pathogens and other contaminants from source water in order to make it safe for humans to consume. Treatment of public drinking water is mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. Common examples of contaminants that need to be treated and removed from water before it is considered potable are microorganisms, disinfectants, disinfection byproducts, inorganic chemicals, organic chemicals and radionuclides.
There are a variety of technologies and processes that can be used for contaminant removal and the removal of pathogens to decontaminate or treat water in a drinking water treatment plant before the clean water is pumped into the water distribution system for consumption.
The first stage in treating drinking water is often called pretreatment and involves screens to remove large debris and objects from the water supply. Aeration can also be used in the pretreatment phase. By mixing air and water, unwanted gases and minerals are removed and the water improves in color, taste and odor.
The second stage in the drinking water treatment process involves coagulation and flocculation. A coagulating agent is added to the water which causes suspended particles to stick together into clumps of material called floc. In sedimentation basins, the heavier floc separates from the water supply and sinks to form sludge, allowing the less turbid water to continue through the process.
During the filtration stage, smaller particles not removed by flocculation are removed from the treated water by running the water through a series of filters. Filter media can include sand, granulated carbon or manufactured membranes. Filtration using reverse osmosis membranes is a critical component of removing salt particles where desalination is being used to treat brackish water or seawater into drinking water.
Following filtration, the water is disinfected to kill or disable any microbes or viruses that could make the consumer sick. The most traditional disinfection method for treating drinking water uses chlorine or chloramines. However, new drinking water disinfection methods are constantly coming to market. Two disinfection methods that have been gaining traction use ozone and ultra-violet (UV) light to disinfect the water supply.
Drinking Water Distribution
Drinking water distribution involves the management of flow of the treated water to the consumer. By some estimates, up to 30% of treated water fails to reach the consumer. This water, often called non-revenue water, escapes from the distribution system through leaks in pipelines and joints, and in extreme cases through water main breaks.
A public water authority manages drinking water distribution through a network of pipes, pumps and valves and monitors that flow using flow, level and pressure measurement sensors and equipment.
Water meters and metering systems such as automatic meter reading (AMR) and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) allows a water utility to assess a consumer’s water use and charge them for the correct amount of water they have consumed.